Blonder Tango

September 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende. Out of "solidarity with Chile", Erich Honecker instructed that the GDR take in people fleeing the country. However, only supporters of the Unidad Popular were given refuge. In the mid-1970s, there were up to 2,000 Chileans living and working in the GDR, including several filmmakers.

Between 1974 and 1985, the DEFA studios produced nearly two dozen works on Chile. In the feature film BLONDER TANGO(Lothar Warneke, 1986), Rogelio has been working for years at a theater in the GDR. In his letters, he tells his mother, who remains in Chile, about his relationship with the singer Cornelia (Karin Düwel). This relationship is only in his dreams. Eventually, he finds out that his mother died but he was not told about this. Based on the eponymous novel by the Chilean author Omar Saavedra Santis, who lived in the GDR, the film is about being and remaining a stranger as an emigrant. (MIrko Wiermann)